As Father's Day approaches, the actor reflects on his late dad's love of showbiz and what he learned from the star, who died in 1998.

Unlike a lot of actors, my father [Lloyd Bridges, who died in 1998] encouraged his kids to go into showbiz. He loved all the aspects of show business: knowing the crews, the traveling, the adventures you get involved in. He reveled in everything from the actual work to signing autographs and doing interviews. I think that's something I learned from him. It wasn't something he said. It was the way he went about living his life in show business.

I remember working with him as a kid on Sea Hunt [a 1958 syndicated series in which Lloyd played a scuba diver] and whenever he came on the set you could see he was having a good time. It made for an easy-going atmosphere. And when you relax, you tend to do your best work. He was so good on Sea Hunt that it was almost a double-edged thing. I think he would have liked to have done more Westerns and other things, but his image was tied in with scuba diving. As a kid, I remember he'd put baby oil on himself and bake. You don't see that much anymore.